The Buccaneer - A Tale

"I have not been yet able to gain speech with the chosen in Israel,"

replied Manasseh: "he hath been much from home on secret service for the

good of his people."

Burrell exulted at this knowledge, and again protested his innocence in

the strongest terms. Manasseh rose to depart. Burrell pressed him to

remain; but the old man resolutely refused.

"I am about to go forth from your dwelling. If you have not been the

seducer of my child, I crave your pardon in deep humility, and will do

penance in sackcloth and ashes for having wrongfully accused you; but,"

he added, bitterly, "if you have wronged me, and devoted her soul to

destruction, may the curse of the old Jew enter into your veins, and

curdle the red blood to a hot and destroying poison!--may the flowers of

the spring be to you scentless and revolting!--may the grass wither

under your footsteps!--may the waters of the valley be even as molten

lead unto your parched lips!--may----"

"Dog of an unbeliever!" exclaimed Burrell, whose temper could no longer

brook the taunting curses of the old man, and whose coward spirit

quailed beneath them, "hold thy foul tongue, lest I pluck it from

between thy teeth. Had I been a circumcised Jew, and thou a Christian, I

could not have listened with more humility; and this is the reward of my

forbearance--curses deep and bitter as the waters of the Dead Sea."

"They cannot harm if thou art innocent. I have neither broken bread nor

tasted salt within thy walls; and now I shake the dust from off my feet

upon thy threshold. Thy words at first were of honey and the honey-comb,

but now are they as gall. Others must deal with thee. The prayer of the

bereaved father was as a tinkling cymbal in thine ears; but the

curse--the curse knocked at thy heart, and it trembled. Others must deal

with thee."

Manasseh Ben Israel repeated the curse with terrible energy; then

shaking the dust from his sandals, he passed, and entered, with his

attendant, the carriage that awaited him at the gate.

Burrell was convinced, and humbled by the conviction, that an

irresistible impulse had compelled him to desert his sophistry, and

stand forth in his real character before one who had the ear of the

Protector, and whose religious persuasion had not prevented his

advancement, or his being regarded as a man of extraordinary mental

attainments, even in a country, the prejudices of which, always

deeply-rooted, were at that time peculiarly directed against the Jews.

This people were devoted in their attachment to Cromwell; and it was

believed that they would not have scrupled to declare him the Messiah

could they have traced his descent in any degree, however remote, to the

dwellers in Judah. Manasseh had mixed so much with Christians, and had

been treated by the Protector so completely as an equal, that he

retained but little of the servility of tone or manner, and less of the

cringing and submissive demeanour, that characterised his tribe; he

therefore spoke boldly to Sir Willmott Burrell, after a burst of strong

and bitter feeling. He knew himself protected by the ruler of England,

and felt undaunted in the presence of one he could easily destroy; but

then he was a father, and as such impelled by nature to adopt every

expedient that might promote the disclosure of a secret on which almost

his life depended, and which, he doubted not, was, in some shape or

other, in the keeping of his wily opponent.